Stereolab

Loudon Wainwright III: 'Recovery'

Working the subgenre he likes to call "Country and Eastern," Westchester native, Peter Stuyvesant descendant and paterfamilias of the Wainwright gang (Rufus, Martha, et al) is in stores today with his new album, "Recovery." Coming off his strangely a propos soundtrack album for Knocked Up, this revisitation of the folkist's four-decade music career has him sounding "better than ever" according to Rolling Stone's Will Hermes, who writes: "You can imagine him singing 'Saw Your Name in the Paper' to his singer-songwriter offspring, Rufus and Martha — a confession about fame's dubious allure that now reads like a paternal warning.  read more »

It must have been a foggy, overcast San Francisco day, 25 years ago, when Mark Eitzel formed American Music Club with guitarist Vudi. What else could explain the perpetual cloud that has hung over the band? Sure, one could chalk it up to the self-destructive tendencies of Eitzel, who writes the songs and sings lead, but that wouldn't suit AMC, whose ouevre includes its fair share of allegories. Maybe it was because they never met a genre they didn't like—rock, punk, folk, country, jazz, etc. Or it could just be that this band has always been destined to be successful amongst critics and Europeans (a la Kraftwerk).  read more »